Wish
by Indigo X
Summary: (1st in the WWF- Wierd Wrestling Fairytales series) While walking along in a broody fashion, minding his own business, Raven stumbles on a bottle containing the key to his heart's desire... if he can keep the contents from turning his life upside-down.
1. One: The Real Folk Blues

Wish  
  
(A Wierd Wrestling Fairytale, or simply WWF)  
  
by  
  
Indigo X  
  
(Hey! Look! Author Notes! ~ Well, here goes. My first actual wrestling chapter story since Gilded Nightmares. Hooray and Yahoo. This puppy's gonna be a bit different than any WWE fic I've ever written, seeing as it's going to be a) mostly on the lighthearted side, and b) a fantasy story. Yep, this is my crack at tying my loves of wrestling and fantasy into one thing, a thing I call a Wierd Wrestling Fairytale, or WWF. (See the acronym? Heehee, I am clever.) If this goes over well, I'll write more.  
  
Anyway... oh, yeah. Because I'm the Goddess-like Author Person, I can and did to the following things- Raven is in this story. He's still in the WWE. But he looks like he did in WCW- y'know, long curly hair, scruff on chin, me-ow. Because I can can can. But in any case, Ravey dearest is property of the bootylucious Scott Levy, and all other WWE guys are property of themselves and the wikkid Vinny Mac. Fatima, well, she's mine. Okay, I'm done. Shutting up. On with the story.)  
  
One:  
  
The Real Folk Blues  
  
(in which we catch up with our nonconformist hero, who finds a thingy)  
  
The mystique of the man walking down the New York street was picked up on my some, who looked on with curiosity. It was looked on with disdain by some of the snooty yuppie types, who eyed him like one eyes a cockroach. But most just simply walked by him without even offering so much as a glance.  
  
Either way, Raven didn't care. He tried to ignore the opinions of other people. Hell, whenever possible, he tried to ignore other people altogether. So even here, walking in the midst of a crowded sidewalk, he was alone. And he was cool with that... well, maybe not as cool as he let on or would like to think, but cool enough.  
  
A person bumped into him and walked on without saying a thing. Raven grimaced and pulled his jacket tighter around himself- except when fighting, he really didn't like to touch or be touched by others. This was as much for the benefit of others as himself. After all, touching in a non-aggressive or even a fond manner, like a handshake or a hug, could lead to a relationship- friendship, romance, something involving trust. That didn't sit well with him, for two reasons...  
  
A. He'd had his trust shattered and his heart broken more times than he'd care to think about.  
  
B. He was dead set on the idea that he was cursed, bound to eventually lead anyone who dared to care about him into some sort of misery.  
  
He cast his dark brown- almost ink black, really- eyes downward, trying to avoid even making eye contact with anyone moving on the sidewalk past him... and then he spied it. A... something. Laying in the raingutter, mostly hidden under a wet New York Times sports page from about a week and a half ago. The Yankees had won the day before, according to the drenched newsprint. But Raven couldn't care less about the Yankees. His eyes were on a sparkle of iridescent deep violet glass underneath.   
  
Furtively glancing back and forth, he stepped over to the gutter, toes of his beat-up black Converse poking over the side of the curb. Nobody else seemed to notice the lovely shimmering color. He wasn't surprised. Subtle beauty... Hell, subtle ANYTHING... was lost on most people these days. Sighing, he knelt down and moved the wet newspaper aside.  
  
There was a bottle underneath, but not a beer or wine bottle, at least from the looks of it. The bottle was, indeed, made mostly of deep violet glass with a light iridescent glaze, blown in an exotic shape- a thin, graceful neck, capped with a lovely tear-shaped stopper, expanding to a round, somewhat onion-shaped body. The body was painted with gold glaze stripes, and appeared to be studded with different colored jewels. Picking it up gently, Raven raised an eyebrow- the thing sure was heavy for something that looked so delicate.   
  
Shrugging, Raven stood up and stowed the bottle inside his jacket. He was guessing it was more likely to be a cheap knockoff than a genuine antique of any kind- why else would it have been laying in a gutter? Oh, well. He'd take it back to the arena, clean the gutter grime off of it, and he'd have himself a pretty little thing to keep- or at the very least, he thought, it'd probably hurt if he clocked somebody with it. Knicknack, weaponry, it's all good.   
  
He overheard some teenagers in preppy clothes snickering to themselves about 'the grunge wierdo digging in gutters.' Turning with a sharp swirl of leather, flannel, and auburn curls, he shot the kids such a glare that they immediately shut up and moved away, their cocky expressions now looking very nervous.  
  
He couldn't help but snicker to himself as he walked away. 


	2. Two: There Goes The Neighborhood

Two:  
  
There Goes The Neighborhood  
  
(in which our nonconformist hero meets our slightly loopy heroine, and is informed that there are restrictions on getting whatever you want)  
  
After getting home and balatantly ignoring everyone who said anything to him, Raven ducked into his locker room and locked the door behind him. Only when he made sure that his mini-fortress of solitude was cut off from the irritating outside world did he remove his new treasure from his jacket and examine it closer.  
  
It did look old, actually, and had the finest of hairline cracks here and there, but otherwise, the bottle seemed to have no irreparable damage. Just a bit dirty, but that wasn't surprising. After all, it'd been in that raingutter for God knows how long before he found it. Just another possibly-worthwhile thing overlooked by the rest of the world. Breathing out a small sigh, Raven slipped his favorite Ramones CD into his small CD player and turned it to 'I Wanna Be Sedated', and then took a handkerchief out of his pocket and carefully began cleaning the bottle off.   
  
Maybe a tiny part of him, the last little innocent bit that still believed in things like dreams and magic and miracles, was hoping against hope that something would happen. A mystical, glittery, smoky something, bursting out of the bottle as he rubbed it with the handkerchief. But nothing happened... well, okay, the bottle got cleaner, but other than that, nothing happened. Raven chuckled and shook his head- how ridiculous was he? It was just a funky old bottle, his name wasn't Aladdin, and nothing even remotely lucky was ever going to happen to him, period, barring some gargantuan cosmic accident.  
  
Again, a puzzled look crossed Raven's face as he felt the bottle's weight. It was definitely too heavy to be empty, unless it was a bottle meant solely for decoration and was, in fact, solid glass instead of hollow. Curious.  
  
Well, he thought, one way to find out for sure. Closing his hand over the smooth glass of the tear-shaped stopper, Raven pulled gently to uncork the bottle... and blinked as the stopper refused to budge.   
  
"Huh." Knocking several copper-brown ringlets out of his face, Raven gave the stopper another pull- harder this time- and still the bottle stayed corked. Another, harder, tug- another failed attempt. Now he was getting irked. Sighing sharply, he sat down on the floor, carefully placed the bottle's neck between his feet, soles of his Cons resting on top of the body. He then grabbed the stopper with both hands, gritted his teeth, and yanked for all he was worth, while pushing down with his feet. He figured this would either open the damn bottle or snap it in half. If the latter happened, well, there had to be some glue laying around someplace.  
  
But the bottle didn't break. Rather, Raven was lucky he didn't break anything as he was jettisoned across the room right into a row of lockers - BANG! - with the stopper still in his hands. Wincing, he sat up- and his dark eyes widened to the size of small UFO's. For what he was witnessing, he'd only moments before dismissed as nonsense.  
  
There was glitter-tinged lilac smoke blowing out of the open bottle with all the force of a hurricane gale, forming a great purple cloud in the middle of the room. And out of this cloud, before the nihilist's disbelieving eyes...  
  
...emerged an exotically gorgeous young lady in silver jewelry and a lilac harem outfit, coughing like she'd hack her lungs up any second.  
  
"Oh, for th' love of Christ! I knew it, I KNEW I overdid it on the freakin' incense! Sheesh, the things I do for a dramatic entrance... I sure hope you appreciated that. I ain't doin' it again." Sighing, the girl sat herself down on the bench, swinging her butt-length black ponytail behind her, and eyed Raven curiously. "Well, you're different lookin', ain'tcha? Lots more interesting than my last master, anyway. Got any idea what you want?"  
  
"Hold on one minute!" Raven folded his arms irritably. "First off, I don't have the slightest idea what the hell's going on here. Second off, is the first thing you can do say something about my looks? Dammit, you've been living in a bottle for God knows how long and you can STILL be shortsighted enough to say that I look 'different' to you? Bloody Christ, for a genie, you're..."  
  
"Whooooooathere, tiger. First off, I wasn't putting you down. If you want me to be honest, I LIKE the fact you look like you do. You're kinda cute, in an endearing grungy poor guy sort of way." The genie-girl shrugged nonchalantly, and her slightly tilted lilac-colored eyes sparkled with amusement. "Now, as for what the hell's going on here, that's easy enough. My name's Fatima, I'm a genie, and you, sir, have three wishes."  
  
"Three wishes." Raven blinked, and mulled this over. Well, there was that gargantuan cosmic accident. It seems that, by some wierd twist of fate, he'd actually gotten lucky. After thinking some, he knew EXACTLY what he wanted. Something he'd wanted all his life, something his entrance into this business had been based on. "Well, there was this girl I loved... Beulah McGillicutty. I wish that she was mine, just like she was meant to be."  
  
"Sorry, wrong answer." Fatima shrugged matter-of-factly. "Try something else."  
  
"Something else? What the... I thought these were WISHES!"  
  
"They are, genius. But there's things I can't do... namely, I can't bring people back from the dead, I can't kill, and I can't do anything that messes around with free will. Like making people fall in love. Cliched, I know, but it's the way things are. So tough titty, said the kitty."  
  
"Oh, rapture. Rules for wishes. Lovely." Raven glared in a very irate manner, which only seemed to amuse Fatima more. Leaning back against the wall, Raven closed his eyes and thought. What could he want that fell within the limits... what could he want...  
  
He heard laughter outside the door, moving down the hall. Loud, mean-spirited laughter- the laughter of three. An old man, a younger man, and a boy. Evolution. God, he couldn't stand them, the three of them so cocky, so quick to throw their supposed authority around just because Triple H was the champ and had been for the better part of a year now...  
  
Dark eyes popped open. A rare smile spread across Raven's face...  
  
...because he knew EXACTLY what he wanted. 


	3. Three: Pardon Me

Three:  
  
Pardon Me  
  
(in which our hero makes his first wish, and the pitch is made)  
  
"Ooh. You look like you got an idea. One that may actually work, even." Fatima leaned backwards, smiling impishly as she eyed Raven upside-down. "Care to share with the rest of the class? I can't read your mind, you know."   
  
"Yes. I do have a wish to make, whether you choose to be snide about it or not." Raven stood up and swished his hair out of his face, and folded his arms in front of him, smirking. "I wish to take that World Championship belt from Triple H. And I want to do it in a way that will humble him before me, that will bring him to his knees in humiliation, and when the dust clears, it will me standing, a more successful champion than he ever was."  
  
"Quite a dilly of a wish, there." Fatima sprung gracefully from her upside-down position, leaping to her feet and turning to face her master. "Now, in order to get this right, you realize I can't just go 'poof' and make you champ. Apparently, you wanna do this the right way, you just want my insurance that it'll all come out to your favor, right?" Raven nodded in the affirmative, and the genie smiled at him. "Okay, cool. Now, this'll take a little time, but by the time it all ends, you'll have exactly what you want. Here's the plan..."  
  
That Monday, he walked down the ramp unannounced and uninvited. This got everyone in the audience murmuring amongst themselves in curiosity, and even King and JR speculated what he could possibly want. After all, Raven seemed to keep to Heat quite a bit, and for him to just breeze onto Raw this way was... interesting. He plucked up a mic, and spoke. His dark, intense eyes were fixed on the entryway the entire time, as if glaring to a person in the back.  
  
"I've had enough! You think I haven't seen what's been going on here? A damned monopoly, a show of uninhibited vanity and personal hedonism the likes of which I've never seen before and, to be quite honest, disgusts me to the point of being physically ill. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm talking about YOU, Triple H! You and your pathetic little clique, holding onto that belt with your sweaty little hands, keeping a deathgrip on it through cheating and deception. You make me positively sick. Now, be a man for once in your life, and come out here, because somebody has to take that belt off your hands... and it may as well be me."  
  
And sure enough, in a moment, Triple H did come out, flanked by the handsome, incredibly talented Randy Orton and the living legend himself, Ric Flair. Evolution stood in all their vanity at the top of the ramp, the self-proclaimed past, present, and future of the business smirking at Raven as if he were joking. The champ snickered coolly, eyes sparkling with amusement, and spoke up first.  
  
"You? You want a shot at this?" Triple H polished the belt with the cuff of his sleeve, and grinned out of the corner of his mouth. "That's great, that's beautiful. Glad you're getting this sudden burst of self esteem, mister Ultra Angst. And I'll tell you what, I'd love to take your challenge... but, honestly, I can't. You haven't earned it, Raven, you haven't. You wanna face me for this belt? Prove to me why I oughta let you."  
  
Raven folded his arms in front of him, stared unblinkingly at the arrogant champion... and smirked in return. "I'll make a deal with you, then. Choose anyone. Anyone you like. I'll face them in a match next week. If your man wins, then I'll never bother you with a title shot request again as long as I live. But if I win... then you not only grant me my shot, you do it at WrestleMania.... under Raven's Rules."  
  
It was all that Evolution could do to keep from laughing aloud. "Okay..." Triple H caught his breath after a moment, and replied in a laughter-shaky voice. "Alright, Raven, if you want to get your ass kicked that bad, fine. I'll go ahead and make my choice right now, if that's okay with you... hey, Randy!" Randy Orton looked to Triple H, his sapphire eyes glinting with anticipation. "You think you can take this Kurt Cobain wannabe out?"  
  
"Sure, no sweat!" Randy grinned, and shot a wink to a boy-cut brunette and a raven-haired girl, both who were sitting in the front row giving him the eye. "This loser should be absolutely no problem, Hunter, no problem at all."  
  
"Thought so." Hunter directed his attention back to the man in the ring. "'Kay then, next week, you get your wierd ass out here, you get yourself humiliated in front of all these little people, and you have a good idea of what your place is, got it?"  
  
"Oh, I'll be here." The grin on Raven's face was unintimidated. Casual, even. "Although whether or not things will turn to your favor is highly debatable."  
  
The grin was still on his face when he made his way to the locker room, where Fatima was waiting for him. She frowned.  
  
"What a bunch of jerks. Y'know, it'd be really fun if I could turn 'em into naked mole rats or something. Teach 'em a lesson. Can I, Raven? Pleeeeeease, can I can I can I?"  
  
Raven shook his head, chuckling softly. "No, I'm afraid you can't. The humiliation of Evolution is part of my wish, and I intend on doing it my way. And though the thought of them as wrinkled hairless rodents is very tempting... I'm inclined to stick with my original plan."  
  
"Man..." The genie sighed huffily. "I never get to have ANY fun."  
  
Sighing heavily, Raven leaned against the row of lockers, head tilted upward, staring at the ceiling. "Fatima? How long have you been inside that bottle, anyway?"  
  
"Huh? Oh, I don't know for sure... all flows together after awhile. Years and years I guess... usually nobody wants to put forth the little bit of effort it takes to yank the stopper off. Why does it matter, anyway? Out of the bottle, grant wishes, in the bottle, rinse, repeat. It gets really, really old after awhile." Fatima filed her nails idly, then folded her hands behind her head, nail file vanishing in a puff of lilac smoke. "Nobody's ever asked me a question like that before."  
  
"I didn't think so." Raven stood up and stretched. "Come on, I'll take you down to Ben and Jerry's for a cone if you want. It's the least I can do... after all, you ARE granting me three wishes here." He tucked the bottle back inside his jacket and started out... then cast a second glance at Fatima. "You may want to change into something a little less... conspicuous, though."  
  
"Hey, now!" Fatima looked down at her pointed shoes and violet harem pants, and laughed. "Look who's talking, mister Society-Puts-Too-Much-Emphasis-On-Appearances!"  
  
She smirked, he smirked back, and they left. 


End file.
